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Who says you have to grow up? Here at SI.com's Game Room, our staffers review the latest sports video game titles to hit the market and welcome your feedback.
  
3/07/2007 12:18:00 PM

Review: NBA Street Homecourt (Xbox 360, PS3)

By Lee Clontz

When the first NBA Street was released in 2001, it seemed fresh and familiar at the same time, reinventing the high-flying, trash-talking, head-to-head classic NBA Jam with an undeniable sense of style. Now in its fourth iteration, NBA Street has made the jump to next-gen consoles with NBA Street Homecourt, which lives up to its predecessors while taking the series in some new directions.

The premise of the game is simple. You create and customize a "baller" using a bizarre -- and frankly, a little disturbing –-- method of merging the facial features of two NBA stars. After you emerge from therapy, you pick two teammates and then start challenging the locals for supremacy of real-life and fictitious courts. Some games are simple "play to 21" affairs, while others only allow points scored on dunks or on jump shots.

NBA Street Homecourt
NBA Street Homecourt :: EA
Once the game begins, scoring rules are about the only rules you'll have to follow. There are no fouls, so players are encouraged, even required, to goaltend, push, shove, reach in and showboat. Once you start to dunk -- and most points are scored on dunks -- a meter will fill up that increases the ferocity and style of the dunk. Time the meter just right and you’ll not only look cool, but you’ll also execute a humiliating double-dunk, swinging the ball around again for a second point. Watch your timing, though, because pushing the meter too far will send the ball rebounding for an easy board for your opponent.

One signature of the NBA Street franchise is the "Gamebreaker," a meter at the top of the screen that each player tries to fill up by showboating as much as possible before sinking a shot. Fill up the meter and you'll enter Gamebreaker mode, which robs a point from the opponent and gives your team a chance at earning bonus points by performing elaborate trick moves to Herbie Hancock's "Rockit."

The controls seem complicated at first, as the game makes use of nearly every button on the Xbox 360 controller, but the basic mechanics are easy to learn. Use the triggers for walking or turbo speed, the X and Y buttons combined with the bumpers for tricks, A for pass and B for shoot. The controls become second-nature quickly and you'll be break dancing and doing sky-high dunks off of your teammate's back in no time.

NBA Street Homecourt
NBA Street Homecourt :: EA
The graphics and art direction of the game are uniformly superb. NBA players look like themselves and the famous next-gen sweat technology makes an appearance here as well. Animations are crisp and fluid and, for the most part, transition together perfectly. It’s worth noting that the interstitial videos introducing the famous playground courts from around the country display a quality and sophistication rarely seen in video games, much less one where you spend half the game soaring above the rim. NBA players look more or less like themselves, though the vastly exaggerated physics keep the game from having any resemblance to reality.

For all the things it does right, the game has a few weak points. The core gameplay is highly addictive, but it does get repetitive and aside from earning achievements and unlocking new players and gear, there isn't all that much to do. Even with a variety of game modes, they all feel fairly similar and the tactics don’t vary much as long as your team has a wide enough variety of skills. There's a variety of locations which all look good, but they all play pretty much the same. The premise of the game is that you're playing in old gyms and playground courts, so some environmental hazards would add a little variety. The ball also can't go out of bounds, so it's jarring to see it appear to bounce off of a force field surrounding the court.

Online play is mostly lag-free, but setting up a game with a friend can be tedious because there is, amazingly, no way to play a rematch. Every game requires the player to create a new session to be created, send another invitation and re-pick teams. Playing multiple games in sequence takes much longer than it should because of the lack of a quick rematch function. The online gameplay has a few quirks also, with no visible dunk meter and an annoying problem where taking over a defensive player on a fast break causes him to momentarily stutter. That lost step can be the difference between a blocked dunk and two points against you.

If you've played NBA Street before, Homecourt will hold few surprises, but you probably won't mind. It's fun, addictive will keep you up late, goading your friends into playing "just one more game."

Ratings System (1 to 10)
Game Play: 9
Tight, addictive and fun. EA Sports BIG has years of experience with this kind of game and it shows. There isn't much in the way of variety, but the core game is almost flawless, even when it gets repetitive.
Graphics: 9
The game's art direction is excellent throughout, and the in-game animations are varied and often hilarious. The game has a washed-out, sepia-toned aesthetic that gives it an overall retro look, but lighting and texture work is next-gen all the way.
Replayability: 8
If there's a knock on the game, it's here. Once you get the core gameplay down pat, the rest of the game is just levelling up and playing against tougher and tougher opponents to unlock players, gear and precious achievement points. That said, online play is addictive and works very well, so you could easily find yourself playing this game with friends until NBA Street 5 comes out.
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Posted: 5:45 PM, March 07, 2007   by Matt
My one complaint about the game was that it was too realistic. I owned Streets vol. 2 and loved the cartoony characters you could build... a short, fat, point guard with glasses who could jam and block with the best of 'em. Also miss the old school players and awesome early hip hop soundtrack that made Vol. 2 so awesome.

That being said, the graphics are top notch, the game play is addictively fun, albeit repetitive. The players are identifiable by looking at them as you play, which is impressive.

Oh, and the face-morphing thing really is a trip, you have to see it to believe it. I managed to make myself a Shaq-Big Ben love-child that looked completely freaky and built him up to a combo of the two, good times indeed. If you don't have the time/energy for seasons of NBA 2007 or whatever, this is a great, fun game.
Posted: 2:49 PM, March 08, 2007   by Anonymous
i know this game is gonna be off the hook...no dout in my mind. the only problem is that it's only out on ps3 and xbox360...and i dont have either:(. no i can either hide my hate for xbox and get one...but then i'll only buy two games for it(this game and enchanted arms), or i can save up $1000 and get a ps3...:(
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